Two in one week! Our six unit scheme in Rotherhithe was granted planning approval by Southwark Council this week. We are hoping to construct this one in CLT – watch this space….

After a lengthy planning consideration period, our Ealing development has been granted permission. The scheme provides nine units as a part of a full refurbishment and extension of an existing town house. As a first for this area, we argues the case for a full basement dig, through provision a series of double and triple height living spaces which bring light and air down to the living spaces.

Planning has just been granted for the construction of two houses on a very thin site in Southwark. As with many of our sites, this one is unbelievably constrained, and the building geometry is a way to achieve good levels of light, air and outlook within these constraints.

The wrapping came off the scaffolding this week on our Camberwell new build house. We really like the way the light catches the dog-tooth brickwork.

Progress on our Tower Bridge House with the insitu concrete work coming out of the ground quickly. We had a group of Architectural Association Students to site, researching the materials that are being used on site, specifically, their embodied energy. Contractor Joe is quite the teacher….

As is tradition in the studio, we went on a tour of London taking in some of our projects which are under construction, or completed in the last year. Here, Giles, Ross and Sho seen posing outside a small cedar clad pop out extension in Harlesden.

Our project, Glazed Fissure House has been chosen to feature in this years Don’t Move, Improve! Awards 2019 – Find out more in the magazine and free exhibition, opening to the public on Wednesday 23 Jan 2019, at New London Architecture

We have started on dog-tooth brickwork on our Camberwell house. Looking forward to seeing the scaffolding come down so we can see the effect from a distance….

Phase 01 of our Quarry House is our for tender this month. We hope to break ground before November…

Phase 01 tender for our Quarry House is out and we continue to work on the phase 02 detailed design including the internal glulam timber frame, and purbeck internal stone walling. Here is a new rendering of the project by studio FIP

Super excited that our Thames House is due to start construction next week. The project will provide views to the river (including Tower Bridge) whilst working within the difficult constraints of the site in terms of privacy and overlooking. The form of the house mediates between the adjacent buildings, and also provides a south facing inclined roof on to which solar renewable technologies will be integrated as part of the fibre cement cladding.

Our Scissor Truss Barn has reached practical completion. The asymmetrical scissor trusses were fabricated on site by a very dedicated team of carpenters, who did a great job in recreating out 1:20 model which has been on site from day 01. More photos for follow soon…

Next week,Giles will be speaking at the WeWork summer camp, discussing key aspects of sustainability in our lives, our workplace and our home. Giles will be part of a Colloquium with Federico Montella, WeWork’s UK Director of Sustainability, and Morgaine Gaye, journalist, author and futurologist.

https://summercamp.wework.com/speakers/

Photos from a project we completed earlier this year near Acton, London. The idea was to allow a visual connection from the first floor upstairs rooms through a linear slot roof light in the new ground floor extension. This lets lots of sunlight in to the space, which transforms the centre of the plan.

Practical completion reach on this development in Streatham, London comprising seven apartments. Very well run project with BBC Construction https://www.bbcconstruction.co.uk/ as the Main Contractors.

Renders of our Rotherhithe proposal which is in for planning this week. The site has a prominent location in front of a park, in a part of London where the heritage of the near-by docks still resonates. The design intention is to refer to both these contexts, in terms of a checker board planted façade to the adjacent building which brings the park to the other side of the development, and a palette of materials of brick and steel which refers to the industrial heritage.

Phase 01 Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, has received a RIBA Awards for International Excellence 2018. The project, on which A-Zero worked with lead architect O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects on the environmental design was described as ‘an exceptionally fine urban campus with few compromises providing a wonderful stage for the university and the city’

https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/riba-international-prize/2018/central-european-university-phase-1

Image  : © Tamás Bujnovszky

Construction starts this week on this new build end of terrace house in Camberwell. The design reference from the adjacent buildings in terms of materiality, reusing the dog tooth brick detail in a new way to create a new elevation to the adjacent park.

Some early renders of a new development in Rotherhithe we have been working on this week. The area is adjacent to London’s Docks, where London’s timber trade was based. Not much of that legacy remains, so our scheme draws reference to industrial materials of that time on this prominent park facing site.

Our Middle Room Project is listed within this year’s ‘Don’t Move Improve’ publication…

Phillip with the team at BBC Construction on our Streatham development of five residential units. The existing building has been fully reconfigured and extended to provide a range of unit types, using the many level changes of the original building to achieve spatial interest within the units. More photos to follow when we get there…

Lots of model making in the studio this week on our Quarry House. Built within an old quarry, the design will achieve Passive House standards, and incorporate a palette of materials ranging from  glulam timber, zinc cladding and cotswald stone walls.

The Tata steel roof is on for our scissor truss barn in Surrey. Very impressed with this product – only two days to install the whole thing, and looking very crisp.

All the trusses are in, and walls are going up on our Surrey Scissor Truss farm…starting to look like a building….

Giles spoke this week as a part of the National Energy Programme-II SYMPOSIUM 25-26 October 2017 in the University of Westminster – ‘Innovative Sustainable Building Design & Energy Efficient Technologies – https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2017/westminster-architecture-department-hosts-national-sustainable-building-design-symposium

Giles will be lecturing in University of Bath next week on the subject of ‘Invisible Performance’ : “Environmental Performance should not dictate architectural aesthetic. Sustainability should not impede creative thinking’

dezeen has featured the Central European University campus redevelopment in Budapest, Hungary, in which we were environmental consultants to O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects. The article talks about how the project links old and new by making connections between existing courtyards, removing existing inefficient buildings and designing new buildings around a series of courts.

https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/11/odonnell-tuomey-central-european-university-budapest-renovation-surgical-strategy-architecture/

We have been granted planning permission for a new build house in the middle of the Grosvenor Terrace conservation area, on a site adjacent to a public park, created as a result of a World War II bomb. The end of terrace site has a prominent position relative to the historic terrace. We have developed the facades in close reference to the existing listed buildings, configuring existing elements in a new way. The aim is that the finished house should look strangely familiar – as though it is new but was somehow always there….

Very excited to see several years of hard work finally unveiled with the removal of the scaffolding at our project of three houses and a nursery at Elephant & Castle. The internal fit out is on-going, but we are almost there with the externals…

Great to hear that the Central European University campus redevelopment in Budapest, Hungary, in which we were involved with O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects was selected for this year’s Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland Best International Project.

Our competition submission for the AJ ‘House of Colour’ competition for an innovative, colourful playhouse for children.

“THE SUN HAS GOT HIS HAT ON
HIP HIP HIP HURRAY
THE SUN HAS GOT HIS HAT ON
AND WE’RE GOING OUT TO PLAY…”

Colour in the morning is not the same as colour in the evening. The sun moves, light shifts, colours change. Our proposal responds to this change with a play structure that orients itself to two directions.

Two interconnected play spaces face east and west. A diagonal wall between each is perforated with differently sized openings, some big, some small – lots of opportunities to run between, play hide-and-go-seek, hangout. Morning sunlight reflects from a series of multi-coloured panels onto the diagonal wall clad with Hardie Panel, and again in the evening, creating a play of reflections and shadows through the day.

We have worked with Ceramic Artist Ingrid Saag, to create a series of art pieces within this central wall, providing coloured openings from one side to the other. Colours range from vivid to earthy, energising to relaxing, and provide an idiosyncratic, inspiring palette for two different worlds – one morning, one evening.

Almost finished on our project in Wandsworth – two houses, one old, one new. The new house fits on a rather awkward site, and inherits this site geometry into the plan. Built of recycled bricks with angular reveals to the front window, the project seeks to reinterpret the language and proportion of the original house in a contemporary way.

Our High Kitchen project is published in Archdaily this morning – http://www.archdaily.com/869295/high-kitchen-a-zero-architects 

Photos from a house we have just finished in South London. The iroko cladding is on the three pop-out windows around which the rear elevation is organised. Photos of the interior to follow shortly…

Some magnificent images of the first phase of the Central European University redevelopment in which we were involved in the capcity of environmental consultants to O’Donnell Tuomey from the initial competition win to Detailed Design. More details here : http://a-zero.co.uk/portfolio/central-european-university/

Fatherhood / Architect duties combine in Wandsworth : new infant addition to the practice, Emile Bruce, got to visit site this week to see progress on our new build house which is progressing well and due for May completion.

Giles & Phillip on site in Elephant & Castle. We are steaming along with all the steel work complete, and the brickwork catching up by the day. The external envelope should be watertight by May.

We are just finished on site with this ground floor extension in Leyton – our first to have used a ‘horse door’ (a door which can either open top or bottom). The project is designed around a pre-existing brick wall built by the client’s father, which we extended into the house to establish a strong visual connection between inside and outside. The bright yellow horse door provides access to the garden. The large picture window is framed by a galvanised structural frame which also forms a structural gutter to provide a cantilevered canopy over the door.

And this is where we have got to on our Elephant & Castle development at the end of 2016. Brick work done up to first floor, and the steel frame installed up to the fourth floor. Bit to go till it yet till it looks like the rendering – but looking quite photogenic in the mist nonetheless…

We are nearing completion on this house in South East London. Many more photos of this project to follow as there is a lot to show…

We have reached that auspicious moment where our brickwork is now the same height as the hoarding…. Things should start moving quite quickly now….

Zinc portal frames around a ground floor and dormer windows are designed to provide the necessary solar control to the windows.The house has been completely reconfigured and extended,  the new interventions linked with a palette of materials comprising solid oak panels, pigmento red zinc and external sandstone tiling. A new kitchen bench seating area addresses the garden through the glazed corner window. More photos to follow…..